Ubiquitous
by Khrysalis
Summary: [Twoshot, moderntype AU] What might it take for Kenshin to realize that there will be times when he doesn't always know what is best?
1. Part One

Author's note:

_This'll be a **two-shot**, no long epic, this. This is kind of my part of an olive branch to soothe over the fight my cousin and I have been having. She's happy to suggest elements and scenarios she'd like to see, and I try to piece them together to make a story. And then she does the dishes this month. Hah. Good deal. Part Two up as fast as I can write it.

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Disclaimer: Thanks so very much to Nobuhiro Watsuki-sensei for allowing me to borrow _Rurouni Kenshin_ from time to time. Even if he doesn't know he is allowing it…

* * *

Ubiquitous  
Part One

Kenshin woke up in the wee hours of the morning. He indistinctly remembered stumbling into his room and collapsing across his bed, and then no more.

Someone, though, had come in after him and had not only laid him out more comfortably on his bed, but had removed the shoes that he hadn't had the concentration or presence of mind to take off himself as well. Either Aoshi or Sanosuke. Probably Sano, who was more thoughtful and more conscious of comfort. Aoshi might have helped only if Kenshin was injured. He smiled slightly in gratitude, sitting up carefully and ignoring the protests of his stiff muscles.

He glanced at the clock, glowing its angry red in the darkness. He'd come home a little after 5:00PM, and now it was 2:36AM. Slept about nine and a half hours, a good deal longer than he was used to, especially these days.

He got up quietly, moving toward the bathroom where he splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth. He was tempted to avoid his reflection entirely, not certain he even wanted to see just how wrecked he really was. He combed through his long red hair with only a few, careless strokes, then tied it back as usual.

He hesitated a moment, then went ahead and faced himself in the mirror. He silently predicted the first words Sano would say would be, "You look like hell." Because it would be true. He noted the circles under his eyes, the bloodshot whites, a loss of coloring in his cheeks, making the old scars stand out all the more.

He rubbed his forehead, fingers tangling in his long bangs. He felt a soft chuckle bubbling up in his throat that turned into a quiet laugh. For some reason, he found his appearance very funny.

He turned away from his gently-smiling image and wandered into the living room.

Aoshi had chosen to sleep in the master bedroom on the other side of the house so that he wouldn't be disturbed by his housemates' nocturnal comings and goings, especially Sano's. Kenshin knew he'd find his friend seated in on the couch, playing videogames and probably eating and drinking products that weren't made of substances usually found in nature.

Sano glanced up from a gory first-person shooter game, and, Kenshin noted with a wry smile, he had been correct in his prediction of the first thing Sano would say when he saw him.

"You look like hell." Sano had the fascinating skill to continue blowing away digital bad guys while seeming to direct his entire attention to Kenshin. "Are you all right now?"

"Yeah."

"Liar," Sano admonished, his eyes drifting back to the screen. "Keep going like this, and you won't make it, Buddy. When was the last time you ate?"

"I'm…not sure," Kenshin admitted.

Sano snorted. "I've been putting you to bed, now I'm going to have to start feeding you too?"

"Sano--"

"Go _eat_, Kenshin."

Kenshin sighed. "Fine, fine."

He wandered into the kitchen and stared at the refrigerator door, which was covered with magnets holding important documents like pizza coupons and the numbers to Sano's favorite take-out joints, feeling a bit lost. He had no hunger, but obeying Sano was wiser than arguing with him when he spoke in that tone. His friend was younger, but the guy had a mother hen streak _and _the muscle to back it up.

Besides, he was right… One had to eat if one was to live.

He reached for the refrigerator handle, but before he could pull open the door his eyes fell on a the glossy photographs at level with his eyes.

One was of himself, Sano, and a reluctant Aoshi. Kenshin had been sitting on the hood of Sano's car when it was taken, and Sano's arm was thrown about his shoulders, the roosterhead grinning broadly as he'd snuck his other hand just behind Aoshi's head to form a pair of rabbit ears.

The other was just of Kenshin and the most beautiful raven-haired, sapphire-eyed girl who ever walked the earth, in his humble opinion. In the picture, he was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, a video game controller in his hands, and she was sitting beside him, an excited look on her face as she cheered on whatever game he had been playing that day.

He stared at the picture, tracing her lovely features with his eyes as if he'd never get enough. Indeed, he couldn't. Not if he had a thousand years with her would it be enough, and how long, how torturously, achingly long had it been since he last…?

He heard a sigh behind him and turned slightly to see Sano standing in the doorway of the kitchen, shaking his spiky head.

He moved to Kenshin in only a few strides and pushed him in the direction of the kitchen table. "Just sit down, you idiot. I'll fix you something."

Kenshin sat, wincing as he lowered himself down.

"You," Sano said, setting out a pot with which to prepare Kenshin some ramen, "are really pathetic, my friend. You realize this is what you get for robbing the cradle anyway."

"Sano," Kenshin said with weary indignity. "I did _not _rob the cradle."

Sano waggled a finger in the air without turning from his work. "Not an issue of how much older you are than her, Buddy, but the consequences of it. _She _is an eight-hour drive away at the university, and _you _are in a living hell having to survive on phone calls and emails and your insane weekend trips up to see her. Misao and I have a bet, you know. She thinks it'll just be another week before you just up and leave and set up camp under her dorm room window."

Sano half-turned to look at him, laughter dancing in his eyes. Kenshin stared back a moment before a smile, a real smile, broke over his face and he laughed along with him.

"Do you think they'd allow that?" Kenshin said, grinning.

Sano snorted. "Well, _I _can't let you. It'll be winter soon, and you'll probably end up freezing to death. Then she'll be upset and'll probably take it out on me."

After a few minutes of silence, Sano set a bowl of steaming ramen in front of Kenshin, then sat across from him at the small kitchen table.

"Eat it _all_, Kenshin," he warned.

"Sano…"

"I mean it. How much do you weigh now, ninety-eight pounds?"

"I'm sure I weigh more than that, Sano."

"Yeah, okay. Maybe more like a hundred and five pounds then. Want to step on the bathroom scale and make sure?"

Kenshin only grunted, twirling noodles on his chopsticks.

"Ah, well." Sano rose, stretching. "Gonna go save my game and get some sleep. And just eat it, all right? Whatever's going on in that head of yours, you just can't live on love alone, you know."

Kenshin made himself eat the ramen, washed his bowl and the pot Sano had used, then went back to the living room. His eyes flickered across the shelf below the television, filled more with games than with videos. None of it held his interest, though, so he just sat down and stared at the blank TV. At his blotted reflection.

He smiled at it again, raking his fingers through his untidy hair. Sano was right, much more of this, and he wouldn't make it. That meant he was doomed, didn't it?

* * *

Sanosuke pried himself from his pillow around ten or so, which wasn't too bad considering the hour he'd gone to bed after feeding Kenshin.

Groggily passing through the living room in just a tank top and boxers, Sano found his silly, lovesick, overworked friend on the couch, sleeping. He watched him for a moment, shaking his head in a mix of amusement and pity.

The phone rang when he got to the kitchen. He dived for it, snatched it off the cradle and cautiously peeked into the living room. One ring and it hadn't woke Kenshin. Good. Good.

He glowered at the receiver before pressing it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Sano?"

He brightened. "Jou-chan! How do the textbooks smell today?"

She snorted and he imagined her rolling her eyes. "Like dusty, moldering third-to-fourth hand books, Roosterhead. How's everything?"

"Exactly like you left it."

There was a slight hesitation. "Kenshin?"

"He's sleeping…do you want me to wake him up?" He said the last part slowly, careful to emphasize without exactly saying it was best to just let him sleep while he could. Kenshin needed it, but he had never been on the bad side of his friend's temper and wanted to keep it that way. No telling how Kenshin might react if he missed out on a precious phone call from his girl just because Sano wanted him to sleep.

There was a pause on Kaoru's end. Then, "How is he?"

"Tired, tired, tired. Jou-chan, why don't you forget the school thing and come back and take care of your man instead? I'm glad he never needs to shave, or else I'd be scared he'd accidentally fall asleep at the bathroom sink and cut more scars into his face."

She sighed, a long, lengthy sound that said much. "If I recall correctly," she said in an irritated, clipped tone, "_I _no longer wanted to go to school. _I_ wanted to stay with Kenshin. He practically chased me away, babbling on nonsense about my future, and in case something ever happens to him, blah, blah, blah…"

Sano smiled faintly, though she couldn't see. "Well, you know Kenshin. He always knows best, right?"

"No, he _thinks _he knows what's best," Kaoru snorted ill-naturedly. "People die from lack of sleep."

"He's sleeping now."

"He won't tomorrow."

"…Probably not. But he's gotten in some good hours now. He'll be okay."

"I'll call back later," she offered.

"Okay."

"Make sure he eats."

"I'm on it."

"Good."

Sano carefully peeked at Kenshin before hanging up. With his friend still sacking Z's, Sano set the phone back in its cradle and crept into the kitchen to seek food.

Trying not to rattle the cookware too much, he tried to turn the problems of lately around in his head. Kenshin had never had it easy, but life had become softer, better for him these last couple of years with the little band of friends that had drifted together. Sanosuke, Aoshi, and Kenshin rented their house together in what might have been meant to be a temporary arrangement a couple of years ago, but had somehow stretched on with no sign of changing. The three of them worked at the same place, if not always the same job and almost never exactly the same hours, at a sturdy old bar called the Ubiquitous Rumba, or just Ubi-Rumba for those who were too drunk too actually say that ridiculous word. It wasn't a bad place for guys like themselves to work, not when all they had really had to offer on a résumé were unusual combat skills--with and without ancient weapons--and enthusiasm for fighting. But it _was _a good place to work, with an understanding boss who believed in minding her own business and never asking questions, where they blended in as much as men like them could blend in anywhere. That they could find peace in a place that was most distinctly _not _peaceful was just one of those things that Sano shrugged off as something that didn't need too much thinking about.

But Ubi-Rumba was in a rough neighborhood. It was as decent and clean a place you could find under the circumstances, but watching for the hoodlums, stamping down any trouble they brought, and throwing them out was tiring and thankless. Okay for a man who got his rest and relaxed once in a while, but Kenshin, well… He needed a lot of looking after lately, or else he'd sleep only every third day and run off coffee and his sense of duty the rest of the time. There was no reasoning with him. He took up his hours, and picked up the slack for other bartenders or bouncers who would sometimes come off the losing end of brawls, and he would always make the unreasonably long drive to where he made his girlfriend to go to school to catch a few precious hours with her before making the unreasonably long drive back for a few hours' sleep, and then it all started over again. And Sano didn't even _want _to think about Kenshin little "nighttime hobby", which was even more grueling than their job was.

Sano wished he could fill in for some of the regular boys more often at work, take some heat off Kenshin, but there was only so much he could do, going to school himself when he wasn't working. And besides that, their boss, Tama, preferred Kenshin to be there as often as she could get him. Kenshin had a way with people. That clueless act of his, maybe sometimes laced with a "good ol' boy" attitude, combined with the fact that he was so small and harmless-looking, he could usually ease fights and unruly people out the door without any of Tama's property being damaged. Kenshin could keep the peace like nobody else could.

Kaoru used to work the bar too. Sano sighed wistfully, uncaringly burning his breakfast a little. It had been great, the four of them rounding each other when their shifts overlapped. Kenshin was happiest then. Amazingly, unabashedly happy, even when it took those two an absurdly long time to get around to actually dating.

Then, the dreaded subject of Kaoru's further education. A respectable school wanted her, but she thought she might go to a smaller place closer to home, like the place where Sano took a couple of classes. But Kenshin, well… She'd always wanted to go to that school. She'd made the mistake of telling him that a long time ago. So…well, as Kaoru said, Kenshin thought he knew best.

The phone rang again, and once more Sano found himself diving for it before it woke said know-it-all. Kenshin stirred a little on the sofa, but didn't wake. Sanosuke breathed out carefully before putting the receiver to his ear.

"Yeah?"

"Sano." It was Tama. "Listen, Hira and Sato called in sick--" Sano groaned through his teeth, "--and I know he's been tired lately, but could you please, please ask Kenshin if he could work the inside for them today?"

"A _double _shift? Tama--"

"I know, but if he could just do this, I thought maybe I'd give him the rest of the week off to catch up on his sleep. Tell him with pay."

Well, that was a temptation, wasn't it? Kenshin could really get some stamina back with the week off, even if he just wanted to haunt the outside parameters of Kaoru's school to catch the kisses she blew at him when she changed classes.

"Okay…I'll ask him. But if there's anymore slack that needs to be taken up, ask _me_, okay?"

"I would have asked you in the first place, but you've got class, don't you?"

"I could skip it."

"Do you have any idea how upset Kenshin would be with you if you did that?"

To be precise, Kenshin would only disapprove mildly if Sano skipped his classes for his own agenda. But Tama was right, he would be downright angry if he found out Sano missed a class for _his _sake. Of course, Kenshin could sacrifice himself and risk his health for his friends, but they weren't allowed to do the same for him. Part of that being the oldest and knowing best thing again. Truly, Tama knew Kenshin well. Or as well as it was possible to know him.

Sanosuke dragged out the redhead's nap for as long as he safely could, then finally woke him, gave him a push toward the bathroom, made him eat with the implied threat of being force-fed if the food wasn't consumed willingly.

Kenshin was blearily happy to consider working a double shift for the rest of the week off, but hesitant about taking the offer all the same.

"But who will take my place when I'm--"

"_I_'ll do it," Sanosuke said adamantly. "Aoshi'll help too," he added, though he well knew better than to make promises on Aoshi behalf without consulting him. Anything to get Kenshin to accept Tama's offer.

"But--"

"We'll work something out. Just do it, will you, Kenshin?"

* * *

Only Tuesday and the Ubiquitous Rumba was booming. Probably because some of the old haunts across town had closed down and clumps, cliques, and cretins didn't have much elsewhere to go.

Aoshi was on door duty for the time being when Kenshin arrived, which he hated. It was more to Aoshi's dignity to lean against a wall inside and keep order by letting his gaze rove over the inside once in a while, but when they were shorthanded, sacrifices had to be made.

Tama, a fierce-eyed woman a few years older than Kenshin with unruly hair and little flour on her chin and elbows gave him a quick smile before seeing to her next customer, someone able to expertly mix drinks and keep an eye on each corner of her barroom at the same time. There was nobody else working, Kenshin noticed with just a small touch of dismay, which meant he'd have to look after the door as well as help her keep an eye on the inside until the next shift change.

Aoshi's time was almost up, and Kenshin liked door duty perhaps just a little less than his friend did, but for different reasons. Aoshi simply didn't like interacting with people, especially when they were going to be uncooperative about Tama's rules for weapons checks. Kenshin had a rougher time of it because he wasn't imposing-looking enough to some of the rougher customers who hadn't come to Ubi-Rumba often enough to have witnessed just how quickly Kenshin could disperse a brawl or end a fight when it was clear the good ol' boy routine wasn't going to work Sano was better at looking the part.

Aoshi decided to check in one last group just coming in, a crude-looking bunch who probably owned the group of motorcycles he spied outside the open door. A general whine when up when Aoshi coldly asked for any arms they had on them, and Kenshin started to get up from his stool to give him a hand when someone finally consented. Among some grumbling, Aoshi came up with an assortment of firearms and a few blades, which Kenshin retrieved for him and stashed under the bar with similar instruments.

The patrons found seats and Tama, with a glance at Kenshin to convey her distaste for them, sauntered over to take their order. Aoshi glanced up and down the street for anyone else, and then wandered to the bar.

"I'm off," he said simply. He started to turn away at Kenshin's nod of acknowledgement, but seeming to think better of it, turned back. He glanced Kenshin over, mouth thinning a little, before he reached into his long coat and tossed a set of keys into the air. Kenshin caught them, blinking in inquiry.

"My car's parked in the back. _Drive _home. Sleep the night before you visit Kamiya-san."

Those were orders, short and concise, and Aoshi was gone leaving Kenshin with his mouth only half-opened with impotent protests. He stared at the propped-open door for a moment before shrugging weakly and dropping they key into his jeans pocket. It didn't do to refuse gift or concern from Aoshi when it was offered anyway.

The afternoon wore on into evening. Shifts of factory workers came and went with on routine, but the gang that had come in just before Aoshi left remained.

They were a bit loud and made atrocious choices on the juke box, but they kept buying and were keeping to themselves, so there was no need to ask them to leave, much as Kenshin would have rather have seen the back of them hours ago.

Tama came and laid a meat pie and a cinnamon roll almost the size of his head on the bar before him, nodding at the beer tap for him to help himself if he wanted, and with one last "eat it, or else," look at him, she went back to work.

As a general rule, most in Tama's employee weren't supposed to be eating out at the bar, since she preferred them to take their breaks in the back or out in the walled-off alley where she kept sturdy tables for their convenience, but Kenshin had always been encouraged, or more lately, bullied, into eating whenever and wherever he wanted. Since before he'd even started working for Tama, she'd always seemed to have a sisterly concern with how skinny he was, though her attempts to put extra pounds on him were futile. At least between her and Sano, Kenshin never _lost _any weight.

The pie gone, and he was partway into the cinnamon filling of the bun, when a boy came barreling headlong into the bar.

Kenshin stuffed the last of his pastry in his mouth as he watched Yahiko's sharp eyes scan the environs, head gradually turning as he took in what there was to see. The boy looked the same as usual; his clothes were far from new, but they were clean, sneakers worn and scuffed, but sturdy with much use left in them, and his hair was uncombed and sticking up everywhere. But the kid's eyes were harsher than it seemed they should be for a boy his age, and lacked innocence lost longer ago than Kenshin had known him.

Yahiko brightened only slightly when he saw Kenshin, walked toward him in even, masculine strides. Kenshin felt a small pang of guilt. Kaoru had been teaching him swords ever since the kid had started hanging out with their group a lot when his foster home situation left him feeling a little neglected, and now that she was away…well, his martial education was put on an indefinite hold. Kenshin would have been more than happy to help him keep in practice, but…time had just not been his ally these past few months.

"This is for you," Yahiko said without preamble, thrusting a white paper bag at him, something heavy and cylindrical inside. "It's from Megumi. It's a protein shake or something like that."

"Ah." Kenshin shook his head, both amused and exasperated. "Thank her for me if you see her before I do."

"Yeah." Yahiko's eyes strayed toward the pinball machines lines up along one wall. "Mind if I hang around for a while?"

Kenshin glanced at the rough little group, still keeping to themselves on the other side and nodded, a little reluctantly. Yahiko was no stranger to places like this, knew how to keep out of the way of people one didn't want to deal on any normal basis, but still…

He wandered over to the pinball machines, popped in a token, and Kenshin watched him play, the noises and beeps of the machine drowned out by the terrible howls and squeals of the music on the juke box. Just a pang before, Kenshin guilt weighed down on him a little more heavily. Yahiko didn't have any friends his own age. He was too mature, too jaded, a few levels beyond most of the boys he lived with, even those who were orphans or from broken homes with stories similar to his. He learned Kaoru's old sword-style, played video games with Sano and Kenshin, and still spent more time at Kenshin's place than he did at the foster house. Kenshin heard he spent a lot of time with Misao now, who had more free time the others did these days.

And once again, Kenshin keenly felt how much better things would be if only Kaoru was home…

No. He squashed the thought wearily. It was best that Kaoru went to school. Education was important. Very important. She was a smart girl, and there would be so many opportunities…

Opportunities to get lonely, try as he might to be there as often as he possibly could. Opportunities to perhaps catch the eye of another, more innocent man with a fresher, younger mind, cleaner hands, and closer to her own age. Opportunities to fall into a new circle of friends that might guide her into a life far from here, where she might slowly forget about the young student she had that had largely benefited from her guidance.

The cinnamon bun felt like a brick in his stomach all of the sudden as his logic fell apart in his mind. He leaned a little on the bar, as the heavy feeling became a little more of a queasy feeling. Of course he had considered these things--had considered them carefully, but his decision to encourage Kaoru to go to the university was laced with trust and hope against such thoughts. She'd come back, and things would be like they--

An elbow on the bar, he rested his head on his fist. Maybe Sano was right. He was an idiot, and he was really pathetic, and becoming more so in both regards every day. But this was something Kaoru had wanted long before she had met any of them. She deserved it. Wasn't it a little wrong to want to covetously hoard her to himself while she went to a far lesser school close to home?

There was a sharp, sickening, resounding crack, a human noise somewhere between a snarl and a yelp, and the hollow scraping of chairs and their occupants quickly stood up.

With tight rebukes curled in his chest for him to turn on himself later for forgetting what he was supposed to be doing, Kenshin got off his stool and started moving through the crowd that had started forming. The thick of it, at the end of the room, were those roughs that had come in before, voices raised angrily over the blaring music. Many expletives coming before the word "brat" were heard, and Kenshin's eyes flicked toward the pinball machines and video games at the other wall. Yahiko wasn't there. Damn.

Not breaking stride, he surged closer, and saw his young friend there, and the trouble. One of the men had a bloody nose, a fist closed over it, and rage in his eyes, and Yahiko stood with his own fists balled, the rage no less fierce in his own. The hand not occupied with keeping the rough's oozing nostrils clamped shut flicked out knife, somehow kept hidden in an inner part of his jacket sleeve from Aoshi's initial weapon check.

Kenshin didn't break stride. Slithering through the crowd, he caught the man with the knife by the collar of his jacket just as he was swinging his arm, placed a foot at the small of his back, and sent him careening face-first into the wall to their left. The man howled like his nose had been broken, which was entirely possible, but Kenshin didn't spare him another glance. Another man dipped low for the knife his friend had dropped, slashing it at Kenshin.

He caught the man's wrist, and brought his free first down on the man's arm, hard, so that the bones of his wrist cracked hard against a chair Kenshin smoothly hooked between them with a foot. This one, too, howled, blade falling from his numbed hand. Kenshin snatched it from the air, and with a flick of his wrist, he sent it flying over his shoulder toward the dart board at the other end of the room. He didn't look to see what he scored, but assumed that it was a good throw from some of the surprised murmurs behind him.

"Yahiko," he said softly. "Behind the bar with Tama."

Yahiko obeyed him quickly, with only a last, blazing glare at the man who crouched on the floor clutching his face.

Only Tama herself wasn't behind the bar. "You're all out," she said in no uncertain terms, coming to stand next to him. "Now. Kenshin, show these men the door if they can't remember the way out in the next few seconds."

"Ma'am," Kenshin acknowledged.

"The little brat--" one of them from the back began.

"I don't care," Tama said flatly. "Clear out."

They bristled as one, like a pack of dogs. Most eyes were on Kenshin, and again he regretted being the only one working this shift, that someone a little more bouncer-like, like Sanosuke, was there to provide a little visual backup. Kenshin put real anger into his glare, and most looked away.

Then someone brought silence to the whole affair by unplugging the juke box. It was one of their own, if his wind-blown dishevelment and grungy state of dress was anything to judge by. "That's enough, boys," he said, voice carrying without him seeming to raise it. "Night's just begun, and I don't feel like spending it in jail or getting blood on my new boots. Let's do like the lady says and clear out."

And that seemed to decide it. The group filed out, Kenshin's senses training at the door to make sure they were really indeed leaving. Tama moved reluctantly to return their weapons at the bar, though no one bothered to stick around to wait for the knife in the dart board to be retrieved. They were gone, and several exhalations of relief went up around the bar.

Somebody in the back righted a chair and another plugged the jukebox in again and chose music that didn't sound like a circular saw chewing through sheet metal.

Yahiko was still behind the bar. Tama leaned over it, eye-level with the boy. "What the hell was that all about?"

Yahiko whispered an curse, voice quivering with rage, obviously too angry to explain himself.

Tama ran a hand over her face, unintentionally wiping off some of the flour from her chin. "Never mind. Go in the back, help yourself to whatever you want, and calm down. We'll talk about it in a few minutes. Kid's getting more like Sano every day," she added when Yahiko was gone. "The _wrong _side of Sano."

The image of Yahiko angrily stuffing his face with chicken wings and glazed rolls melted away into more guilt. Tama was right and wrong at the same time; Yahiko's reaction to whatever slight or lewd comment he'd just had to endure might have been similar to how Sanosuke might have reacted, but there were a whole lot of "mights", besides. But she was right in that Yahiko had become sullen and easily moved to anger of late. The kid would never admit it, but he missed Kaoru, and was being bogged down by his old feelings of being neglected.

Kenshin couldn't shake off the suffocating feelings of burden even an hour past midnight, when he helped Tama get the last few stumbling patrons out of the bar. He insisted on helping with the nightly cleanup, and she allowed him only because she wasn't strong enough to physically _make _him go home to his bed.

Yahiko had left in time to get home before ten, his curfew, but he'd stopped by Kenshin at his post at the door to ask if he could make time to talk to him the next day.

"Absolutely," Kenshin said, meaning every syllable of the word.

Yahiko had nodded, eyes somewhere between his sneakers and Kenshin's. "I'll come over tomorrow."

"Okay. See you later."

That very short conversation, and the memory of Yahiko standing with angry fists in front of an adult twice his size and three times his weight stayed with him as he made his way to Aoshi's car in the back. Aoshi had also left his cell phone inside, on the passenger seat, surprising Kenshin with a sudden ring in the silence inside.

He let it ring again before shrugging, picking it up, and lifting it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Himura! It's about damn time you answered the phone! You were supposed to be off work half an hour ago."

"Hello, Misao," Kenshin said politely, smiling slightly.

Misao huffed. "Why you-- Oh, never mind! Listen, we need a favor. Sano made the mistake of eating some stuff wrapped in tin foil in the back of the fridge--"

"Oh, no."

"'Oh, no', what?"

"Wrapped in tin foil?"

"Yeah?"

"In the back of the refrigerator?"

"Yeah! So?"

"That was a piece of Kaoru's cake--"

"Cake? She hasn't been around to make a-- Wait a minute, a piece of cake from your _birthday_?"

"Um…"

"Himura, you left a piece of food months old in the refrigerator that _Kaoru-san _made, with _Sanosuke_ in the house?"

"Does Sano need to be taken to the hospital?"

"No, his stomach's as durable as the rest of him. But we kind of need you to pick up some of that bismuth stuff from a drugstore, okay?"

"All right. I'll be home soon."

"And you're going to bed and not…out, right?"

"Yes, ma'am. Right to bed."

"Good boy."

"Thank you. Are you staying the night?"

"May as well. Too late to go home tonight."

He made a soft noise of acknowledgement and set the phone back where he found it on the passenger's seat. Several minutes along the road, he tried to remember which was the closest drug store, not certain whether he should laugh or be worried about that slice of cake.

In truth, he hadn't forgotten it, and had deliberately hidden it in the back behind a mustard jar with a long-past expiration date stamped on the lid. That it had taken Sano that long to find it meant that he had hidden it fairly well, and its discovery meant the fridge was getting empty.

Kaoru had made him that cake. It wasn't very good…somehow she had managed to make it kind of runny in the middle and yet the bottom was burned to a crisp and stuck to the bottom of the pan. But she had worked hard to make it, and the smile on her face when he not only ate a sizable slice of it, but wrapped up another sizable slice to take home was worth it.

He, well… He blushed, hunching down in his seat a little. But he just wanted to keep the cake, as a physical part of memory. It was his birthday, and she'd wanted to make it special since it was that summer that she had been accepted at the university. He hadn't meant to poison Sano, but there were some things that couldn't be explained to him either, like sentimentality over an old piece of cake.

Who was foolish enough to eat something they found in the fathoms of their refrigerator behind a moldering jar of mustard, anyway?

The drugstore was brightly lit with very clear, white light that his tired eyes could barely tolerate as he found a bottle of the thick, pink stuff he hoped would help Sano's discomfort. Back in the car, he dropped his purchase beside Aoshi's phone and turned the car toward home.

He scanned he sidewalks on either side of him a little wistfully. Misao was right, he really didn't have the stamina to…_patrol _them like he should, but the streets weren't safe at night. Very few were the nights that he went out with the heavy weight of the old reverse-blade in his hand that he didn't find some victim or another, preyed on by monsters or wild dog packs like the ones he threw out of the Ubiquitous Rumba tonight. He hunted them as they hunted the innocent or the helpless. It was how he'd met most of his friends, out there trying to, as Kaoru had once put it, "fill in the gaps of justice".

But…every night he didn't go out, he wondered if there was someone out there that might have needed his help, and he wasn't there.

Aoshi's phone rang again.

"Hello?"

"Himura, Sano's feeling better now," Misao said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, now he's hungry. He didn't get to keep the cake."

Kenshin sighed. "Oh?" he repeated.

"He wants pizza. Pizza sounds good; I want some too."

"It's almost two in the morning."

"So, what? It's not like you've got to go anywhere in the morning."

"Don't either of you?"

"Nope. Pizza, then? Pleeeeease, Himura?"

"All, right. Fine, Misao. What would you like on--" He paused, a sharp and intense light burning away his vision out of the darkness ahead. A truck, he thought, coming toward him with the high beams on, and it was coming fast.

"What--" he exclaimed, a second before the high beams veered sharply into the space before him, blinding him completely. Inhaling sharply, he dropped the phone and cut the wheel to the right, slamming on the brakes.

There was the terrible sound of squealing tires, shattering glass, gut-wrenching weightless sensations again and again punctuated by bruising impacts, the pain of the seatbelt cutting into his neck, and finally a screeching, bone-rattling force of a final, crashing stop.

He sat stunned when the world was completely still again, fighting for breath against the constricting seatbelt. There was a hissing sound, escaping steam. There was a small voice somewhere, screaming his name.

Carefully, he pried his hands from the steering wheel, trying to take stock of himself. His shoulder and chest hurt, his midsection, from the seatbelt. Blood was soaking his eyebrows where he hit his head somewhere, on the steering wheel, he thought. He touched a sizable split in his flesh above his forehead that a vague part of his mind had time to hope wouldn't leave a scar.

That voice was still shouting. He blinked in confusion, then remembered the phone. It was shouting at him from the floorboard. He tried to unbuckle the seatbelt, found it jammed, so he wriggled and stretched managed to catch the edge of the phone with his longest finger, flipped it closer so he could pick it up.

"H…hello?"

"_God damn it_, _Kenshin_, are you okay?" It wasn't Misao, but Aoshi, his highly controlled verbal skills thrown out the window for the moment.

"I think so…" He looked through the fractured windshield and at the crumpled hood. "I think…Aoshi, your car…I'm _sorry_."

There was a long silence. From Aoshi, anyway. Misao was demanding to know what was going on, her voice high and frightened. He couldn't hear Sano, so it was a good bet he didn't know what happened yet.

Aoshi sighed, a short, barely audible sound through his nose. "All right. We'll be right there. Where are you?"

"I--"

The truck was back. Screeching, wavering across the road. Bearing down on him again.

Kenshin hissed, right hand coming down to fight with the jammed seatbelt. "I'm a few miles from the drugstore behind the bar," he breathed out in a rush, and, realizing that now was most definitely _not _the time to act like he was in control of the situation, he added, "Aoshi, I'm in trouble."

Then the truck crashed into him again.


	2. Part Two

Part Two

Sanosuke's vehicle was of a model and make of longer ago than he had been born, and was so dented and rusted nobody was sure what color it had originally been painted. But it moved when the gas was pressed, and it moved faster than they could run. That was all that mattered.

Sano was at the wheel, knuckles white at the ten and two o'clock positions. Aoshi made sure to be sitting in the back, letting Misao have the passenger seat, since he knew from experience that his own calm demeanor would have a negative effect on the impulsive younger man. Misao's distressed, overanxious babble and inability to sit still would be more in tune with what Sanosuke was feeling.

There was very little information; just a vague idea of where he was and the terrible sounds they'd heard through the filter of the cell phone before it had gone dead in Aoshi's ear. There were two very important things to consider: one, that Kenshin was stubbornly hard to kill, a good thing, and two, Kenshin did not have his weapon with him, most assuredly a bad thing.

"Is he okay?" Misao again, and it was starting to spill over the void of Aoshi's patience.

He didn't answer, at least not verbally; only closing his eyes a moment, and then opening them slowly to widen the gulf again of worry and calm. Kenshin's soft statement of "_Aoshi, I'm in trouble_." was still hanging in the air before him. Not a plea for help, but a grim sort of alert. He may as well have said, "Aoshi, I'm in trouble…so I won't be bringing any pizza home."

"Idiot," Sano said, in the same repetitive phase as Misao. That seemed to be the only word left in his vocabulary.

The ancient old car bumped along viciously, Sano driving far outside the speed limit. They were almost to the drug store near their bar.

"Did he say which way past the drug store?" Sanosuke demanded, finally remembering he knew how to speak beyond his litany of "idiot".

"No," Aoshi said, putting a little harshness into the word so he wouldn't have to hear another one of Sano's stress-induced tirades about him being too calm in these situations. He didn't want to hear it tonight when there were other things he wanted to listen for, like sirens or gunshots. "He only said a few miles past it."

"Damn," Misao said. "That means we'll just have to guess and hope we're right."

"And if we're not, we'll have wasted time," Sano said roughly, making a sharp turn. The brightly-lit drugstore was before them. "Right or left?"

"I don't know!" Misao said. "Was he headed toward home or to get pizza?"

Sano turned his car left. "He just got the call from you…so he was probably headed for home."

Logical enough, Aoshi thought. Perhaps Sanosuke wasn't wasting his time taking a few classes at school after all, in spite of the lackluster grade reports that were stacked up on his untidy dresser in his bedroom.

All eyes were pinned to the windows, looking for any signs. Kenshin. Tire skid marks. Bits of Aoshi's car littering the road. Anything.

Strange, it was, that just two years ago, Aoshi wouldn't have cared quite so much. Or rather, he might have been more concerned with the condition of his car than with the condition of a shadow-assassin turned shadow-vigilante, who still remained the stuff of nightmares in dark corners and those who kept old secrets. Kenshin had been an enemy once, one without any sort of bitterness or even hatred. Just on the other side. And his very being represented professional challenge.

But, what with one thing or another, and being living proof himself that people do change, Kenshin had made a friend of this enemy. It was a cool friendship, in contrast with the warmth and camaraderie that Kenshin shared with the others, but neatly cemented in mutual strength and trustworthiness as the two of them proved themselves to each other again and again. Even their living arrangement, which at the beginning Aoshi truly meant to be only temporary, until some old wounds were healed and some answers found, was something he hadn't been able to walk away from just yet, a belonging offered there that he wouldn't deny or embrace, but just wanted to remain near.

Aoshi had observed Kenshin made everyone feel that way in one way or another, helped them find something that they were missing… Maybe that was why it felt like if something happened to him now, the entire universe would be thrown out of balance.

Foolishness, of course. Life would flow on regardless whether any of them lived or died. It would go on regardless of Himura Kenshin.

"Faster," Misao hissed as the urgency seemed to swell out around them, even if they were already going too fast as it was.

Yet Aoshi silently agreed. _Faster_.

* * *

Kenshin's primary thoughts were of Kaoru. Once in a while, in the swirling thoughts and bursts of pain, Tomoe floated into his mind, whom he accepted more easily than he once would have, with a lessening of guilt that lined the memories of her and the days of his youth. But mostly it was the thought of Kaoru he clung to, Kaoru who was still alive, still warm, who could still touch him and be touched in return, whose cheek was warm against his in their embraces, mouth still so sweet when touching his. Kaoru, who would be the one to cry if he didn't come back…

Then, Yahiko. Yahiko wanted to talk to him in the morning. He had to be there for him.

Kid picked his pocket in the bar. Kaoru tackled him. Before they all met Sanosuke…

Sano's voice. _"What the hell does 'ubiquitous' mean?"  
_  
_"Everywhere. That's what it means. Everywhere all at once. Omnipresent." _

"So a ubiquitous rumba is dance that's everywhere?"

"Why not? To some, that's all life is. A dance that's everywhere."

The present, gasping, cold air, hot pain, and warm, sticky blood, rushed back to him with a suddenness that left him all the more bewildered. He was hanging upside-down now, the seatbelt alternately saving his life and endangering it as it kept him strapped in place.

There was gunfire then, shattering the last of the intact windows of Aoshi's car and darkness closed in as the street lights close by were shot out. His thoughts swam out again, a saying chiefly involving the fate of ducks who sit... _He had to get out of the damn car! _

Into fire unprotected, yes, but he didn't think he could take another hit from the truck. His hands felt numb as he felt for the buckle again.

"Hello? Are you still alive in there?"

Kenshin's thumbs pressed hard into the belt release, but it was still stuck.

The sound of a fist knocking hard on the side of the destroyed car made his head begin to throb. "I said, are you still alive in there?"

He twisted as quietly as he could, trying to pull the shoulder strap behind him so that he might wriggle out of the one around his waist. He raised his hands against the ceiling, pressed his feet to the floorboard. Jolts of white pain shot from one ankle directly into his brain. He removed weight from that limb and used the other to push.

A click, very familiar, very close to his ear. "Don't move."

Kenshin stilled his body, but turned his head. Saw the simple, but effective .45 pointed at his face through the driver side window, and beyond it, a youthful face, blond-dyed hair flaring out black at the roots, hazel eyes with muddy-red flecks… It took a moment to place him, but Kenshin did; remembered he was the young man with that dog pack, the one who had unplugged the juke box at the bar.

"Still kicking," he murmured, finger twitching a little on the trigger. "That's all right. I wanted to talk to you first, anyway. After all." His lips twitched slightly. "Mother always told me that punishment's no good unless you know why you're being punished."

Hands still pressed to the hood, Kenshin blinked sweat out of his eyes. This boy was not quite sane, that much was true, but it was also entirely possible Kenshin had done something to offend him… At the bar, when he combed through the shadows on the streets and alleyways at night--

The punk jabbed the gun closer. "Do you have any idea where I just spent the last two years?" he spat, punctuating the end of his sentence with foul gutter-talk that, in spite of lurking in those gutters sometimes, Kenshin didn't quite understand.

Not the literal meaning, anyway. The idea, he got. So, it was like _that_. This young man must have recognized him at the bar from an encounter of before, and encouraged his fellows to leave so they could follow him in that big truck. The scrape of motorcycle boots on the asphalt outside meant the rest of them were waiting for a piece of revenge for what happened at the bar. After this one. Either he was the leader--a little rare for one so young, but not unheard of--of this dog pack, or they found his personal revenge a little more righteous that their own and were willing to wait their turn, or just to see what would happen.

But those were details. A different detail, a somewhat more important one, was that Kenshin didn't remember this young man at all. That didn't mean much. Strangely, he thought he remembered the faces of everyone he'd ever killed, but the punks and thugs and murderers and rapists he thumped off the streets were ever more numerous. He just didn't remember all of them.

A couple of years ago, this one might have been young enough to go into one of the juvenile systems. Maybe. The laws were a little tougher nowadays. In any case, the young man looked like this had been stewing inside him for a while.

Since nothing he could say could do him any earthly good, Kenshin remained silent, looking past the gun as if it didn't exist into the young, angry face.

"Do you have any idea how many times I imagined this?"

Another rhetorical question Kenshin didn't seem expected to answer. Inopportunely, blood dribbled from the wound on his forehead into his eye. He went to move a hand to wipe it away, but the gun thrust closer.

"I said _don't move_!"

He stilled, closing his eye in defense and tilting his head to one side so that gravity would direct the flow away from the other.

"Bastard," the gunman said, as if it was Kenshin's fault for the interruption.

"What do you want to do now?" a voice from beyond the upturned tires murmured. "We need to get out of here before the cops show up."

"Yeah," Blondie murmured. Abruptly, the gun withdrew and he stood up. "Get him out. Watch out, he might have a sword."

Two more punkish faces replaced his, big hands forcing the banged-up door open, reached inside for him. Something ripped and tore, a good deal of it the flesh around his waist as opposed to the seatbelt, as he was yanked and dragged out of his restraints.

They held him still, not entirely a bad thing. His ankle hurt. It hurt a lot, maybe very badly sprained, more likely fractured. The feel of blood running down his jeans was very unpleasant. He was tired…he should have been in bed by now. The others were going to have a fit. His thoughts were swimming out again, little tangles of silly regret (_is this how I'm going to spend my time off_?) before he forced himself to the present, to pay attention.

"You don't look so good, Red. Not sleeping well?"

Everyone was so concerned with his sleeping habits lately. In spite of it all, he smiled, unnerving some of them with the expression of genuine amusement. "Not tonight, anyway."

The quip was reward with a blow in the gut. More blood ran down his pants as he tried to regain his breath, the shallow breathing of Blondie not so different from his own.

"I can fix that for you! I know what that's like. You know what it is to try to get a good night's sleep in juvie?"

Kenshin straightened, locked eyes again with the younger man. "I don't," he said, voice gentle and without a trace of mockery. "What did you do to get there?"

Kenshin watched his mouth drop open, his face turning mottled pasty-white and red with the ugly mixing of disbelief and anger. "You aren't telling me you don't remember."

The words were threatening, a fact never more cold and deadly that the only thing worse than carrying around a grudge was a grudge that the other party didn't bother to remember. Kenshin had wanted to avoid at least this, the stripping of this young man's anger of its significance, unrighteous as it was, especially in front of his followers. But it looked like it wasn't to be avoided. If he could keep him talking for as long as possible…

More than likely a very painful long as possible, from the rage he saw building right before his eyes. His ankle throbbed along with his heartbeat. He braced himself carefully on the good one.

There was a little brushfire of snickering that was quickly stamped out among the other hoodlums, more, he had a feeling, so they could hear what would be said next than out of respect for Blondie. But Kenshin winced inwardly--the brief laughter was too much stoking to an already raging fire. This boy's chosen path was violence. He highly doubted he would be able to talk his way out of this.

"What did you do?" he repeated anyway since, aside of the need to buy every minute he could, he genuinely wanted to know.

There was a ghostly moment that passed then, a pale and fragile one where the other rough boys stopped existing, even if for only the heartbeats where Kenshin's assaulter seemed suddenly very young and very lost-seeming. Enough for a sliver of pity to grow, if it hadn't existed already. Enough to know that the truth was, what this young man did probably mattered far, far less than Kenshin's memory of stopping him. Probably something deeply unimportant, maybe even laughable by the standards of his companions. Kenshin had dozens of hundreds of memories of catching and stopping kids and young men Blondie's age from snatching purses and wallets and other items, pulling underage drinkers or the lusting off the innocent and defenseless. That the need for revenge against Kenshin couldn't be built up by simple verbal reminder seemed to crumble the last ounce of control in this situation.

Then the cold moment ended and the young man's voice was hoarse and mean. "Anybody for payback for what happened at the bar? Kill him. Kill the bastard."

Still self-absorbed and yet remorseless. Talk seemed over, and it also seemed no amount of discussion would ever make this one see past his own emotions and to the pain he inflicted on others. Pitiful indeed.

Kenshin had time to smile at the irony right before the first punch aimed for his mouth.

He saw it coming from a long time off, by a man with a bandaged face. The man whose nose Yahiko had bloodied at the bar. In the time it took the broken-nosed man to draw back and exert his fist, Kenshin, with only the vaguest of seconds to feel regret for what pain it would bring to the injured limb, hooked his bad foot around the ankle of the man next to him. The twist necessary to trip him up and nearly made his vision go white--he'd really hurt himself this time. If these guys didn't kill him, he had had a whole handful of people at home who would. And they'd never let him drive to see Kaoru like this…

_Damn_! The flash of anger tapered off into amusement as the captor he tripped fell, allowing him to shove himself back against the other who still held him, sending them both sprawling against the side of the upturned car. But the punch that continued on to where Kenshin was once standing also slammed into the car. The man with the broken nose howled much like he had at the bar. Possibly with broken fingers this time.

Kenshin moved, jumping free of the circle of toughs before they could react, and dashed around the car.

Running hurt. So much. And there was a horrible, frightening grinding in the bones of the ankle, a risk of injury beyond even the stubborn skill of Megumi. But not moving was death, he knew, especially when Blondie's furious shouts were accompanied by a hail of bullets.

On the other side of the car, he crashed onto one knee on the asphalt, gaspingly desperate to get off the ankle if only for a few seconds. But it wasn't a wasted few seconds as he fell onto his stomach, thrusting his arm through the passenger-side window.

There was very little that was helpful inside Aoshi's car. He had always meticulously taken care of his vehicle, a stipulation of his personality rather than affection for the car itself. But there was the bag with the thermos Megumi had sent him, and Aoshi's cell phone, which had miraculously remained in the car instead of flying out the shattered windshield or open windows.

He reached for the thermos, still in its back, and knocked the cell phone toward himself. He slipped it in his pocket. No time to call for help right now, and, on the besides, all the help that would do him any good was probably on its way.

He curled the back with the heavy thermos to his chest, brought himself up, taking too long, _taking too long_, he knew from the pounding of boots on asphalt. The streetlights were shot out, shadows spreading thick. With no time to get his bearings, he got up and ran toward those shadows.

They saw--fire opened behind him again. He misjudged where an alley might be, but this probably only saved his life as he slapped his hand against hard brick wall and bounced himself into a sharp turn along the side of it.

The phone rang.

He almost laughed. His breathing came in short, forced bursts, wheezing in his chest with every agonizing step he took on that one, swelling ankle, and he wasn't certain he had air for answering a telephone even if he had time right now.

The alley opened back into the street, and he stumbled back into light. He held himself back to avoid being hit by a completely oblivious sedan. He ran across behind it, pain-tears stinging at his eyes, ducked into another alleyway, this one with a big metal trash receptacle. He dropped to his knees beside it.

His hands were shaking, fingertips tingling. He was so tired he was nauseous, and there were tiny white spots combusting over and over in his vision. They were coming still, he could feel them, hear them.

The phone was still ringing too. Quickly, he fished it out, received the call so its rings wouldn't give him away just yet.

* * *

Sanosuke swore viciously, slamming a fist into the already dented door of Aoshi's totaled car. "Answer the _phone_, Kenshin!"

Misao twisted the front of her t-shirt in her hands as she peered inside the busted windows. "There's not blood everywhere," she said under her breath, but hopefully. It irritated Sano, but he ignored her, concentrated on the rings. Three…four…

As Aoshi circled the car, and the large truck that was halfway spun around with its lights still shining out in the opposite direction of where the upended car lay, Sano was within another ring or two of throwing down his phone in frustration when the rings ceased.

Heavy breaths followed by a strained, "H-hello?"

"Kenshin!" Sano burst out, not noticing the other two spin toward him. He hadn't really expected Kenshin to still have Aoshi's phone or to be able to answer it, but… "Are you all right?"

"No."

The answer was so simple and calm, in spite of him being out of breath, that Sano was put off saying anything else for a couple of heartbeats. "What's wrong, where are you? We found the car, but you're not--"

"A dog pack…at the bar," Kenshin puffed. "Um…one recognized me from…from the streets." He exhaled loudly, took in another deep breath. "I'm sorry, Sano. I'm usually so careful--"

"Where are you?" Sano broke in before his friend could dig himself yet another huge, insurmountable hole of guilt. "Are you hurt?"

"Yeah. I, ah…I don't think I can run anymore."

"They're chasing you." It wasn't a question. Sano swore again, saw out of the corner of his eye Aoshi tighten his fist on the long sheath where his weapons rested. "Where. Are. You?"

Kenshin blew out a frustrated breath. "I don't know, Sano. If you're at the car, I'm not far from--"

He broke off, and Sano heard shouts through the phone, close by to Kenshin.

"Ken--"

"They're here. Sano, I… I think you might have to follow the sound of the gunshots."

"Kenshin!" Panic flooded through Sanosuke's veins like ice water.

"What's going on?" Misao burst out, her eyes faced twisting to mirror his.

"Sano, I need you to tell Kaoru--"

"Oh, no. Hell, no, you jerk! I'm not telling her anything! Whatever it is, you're telling it yourself."

"Please, Sano. Please. Tell her that…tell her that _I meant it_."

Then there was the sound of the gunshot Kenshin predicted. It was in the air, cracking faint and sharp at the same time, and eerily out of sync through the filter of the cell phone by a full second.

Then Sano found himself running. The sound wasn't from far away. He heard the others, feet pounding on the street and on the sidewalk.

He cut through the buildings, hesitated when he came back into lamplight. He clenched the cell phone still in his hand, hard enough that he heard the plastic crack.

Aoshi ran past him, Misao on his heels. "This way," he said, too calmly, too damn calmly, but for a single, redeeming drop of sweat Sano had time to see run down his face just beside his ear.

Aoshi found them. This "dog pack", well described by Kenshin for the assortment of mutts, twelve or fifteen heads, all of them scrambling against each other at one point beside the garbage like animals tearing at a single piece of meat.

Sano was on them first, sprinting past Aoshi. He grabbed the first two by greasy jackets, drove one head first into the sidewalk, flung the other back into the street. Misao was suddenly at his side, side-kicking another dog into the trash bin, where his connection made a satisfying ringing sound, and he crumpled.

By the time Aoshi waded in, Sano had caught sight of Kenshin. The redhead, bleeding from his nose and flat on his back, was straddled by a dyed-blond guy, both of them grappling for a pistol. Blood was slowly pooling beneath Kenshin.

Sano pushed through and filled in the space between them, catching Blondie in the jaw with real muscle behind his punch, and knocking the gun away from the four hands clutching at it. Blondie crumpled, collapsing on top of Kenshin. Sano gripped his jacket and flung him aside.

"Kenshin. Kenshin, are you all right?"

Kenshin was breathing hard, mouth open, eyes shut in the concentration that it was taking simply to breathe. His hands were wet and sticky when Sano touched them, pressing lightly over the gunshot at his waist.

"God," Sano said, hoping it just looked worse that it really was.

Misao was at his side then, dropping to her knees, face twisted in many emotions, anger and worry the forerunners of all. Aoshi moved in close, too, knelt and gently pulled Kenshin's hands away from the wound.

"Misao. Ambulance," he said tersely, jerking off his light jacket. He rolled it into a ball and pressed it gently onto the cheerfully bleeding injury, slowly applying pressure.

Not knowing what else to do as Misao hastily dialed the numbers to call for help on her phone, Sano leaned over Kenshin, pulled up his jacket sleeve over his hand as he carefully wiped away the blood from Kenshin's face. "Buddy, talk to me."

Kenshin opened his eyes, focused on Sano's. "Sorry," was the first thing he said.

"Apologize again and I'll crack your jaws for you," Sano said, but the weak grin on his face ruined the threat. "Idiot. It's not like it's your fault."

"No…I mean, for your stomach. The cake. I'm sorry I left it there. I didn't mean to make you sick."

Sano gawked at him, and to his further surprise, Aoshi chuckled. A very short sound, only a syllable of air expelled with a closed mouth, but when Sano looked at him, his face was deadly serious as always.

He looked back at Kenshin, though, saw the twinkle of laughter in his large violet eyes, and realized he was being teased.

Then the smile slid away from the redhead's face. "Will you tell her?" he asked.

"I told you to tell her yourself."

"I meant it. I really did."

Meant what? "Yeah. Yeah, you meant it. Now just rest, okay? The paramedics'll be here soon. You can tell Kaoru you meant whatever later."

"Sorry I didn't get the pizza too…"

Sano ran a hand down his face. "Kenshin…" he warned.

Kenshin smiled, eyes focusing on something beyond Sano's face. The icy feeling in his blood again, Sano grasped his shoulder. "Don't you dare--"

The eyes were back on his face. "Please tell her."

"Fine. Fine. I'll tell her."

"Thank you."

* * *

Kaoru didn't have much experience with hospitals. In fact, she couldn't remember ever being in one since very early childhood, and didn't quite recall how much worse they smelled than Megumi's familiar old clinic where many an injury between her and her friends had been patched.

She was aware she was probably breaking rules by running through the hospital. It was too slow a run as it was, in her opinion, but she was reading the numbers by the sides of the doors, skidding to the halt when she found the one she was looking for.

Everyone else was already there. Megumi, Sano, Misao, Aoshi, and Yahiko, sensing their danger, quickly parted in the tiny room to allow her to throw herself at the bed.

At the bed, but not quite on top of the man lying in it.

He was okay. Very pale, dark circles underneath his eyes, but the smile was there, the arms reaching for her warm with life.

She cradled his head and shoulders against her for long moments that absolutely no one interrupted before she began calling him names. She pulled away from him just a little, slapped him, very, very lightly, on his scarred cheek, not even listening to half the things she was saying, and yet watching him nod like he was either making promises or agreeing with denouncements of his intelligence. Or both.

She barely noticed the others leaving to give them time along together, though she would remember to thank them for it later. "Are you all right?"

He nodded, grinning. "Megumi is very upset with me. I used her favorite thermos to deflect the bullet away from my vitals. She says they don't make them like that anymore."

Kaoru laughed, resting her forehead against his. "Idiot," she said affectionately. "Hey, guess what I heard?"

"What?"

"Well, when Sanosuke called to tell me what happened, he said you insisted he tell me you said you 'meant it'."

He licked his lips, a little nervously. "Yes. I did."

"Still mean it?"

"Yeah."

"Good." She leaned in to kiss his eyes closed. "You're tired. Sleep, okay?"

"Okay."

It was a little later, when she was certain he was sleeping, that she slipped from his room and nearly bumped into Aoshi, who was leaning against the outer wall like he was standing guard duty. Which may indeed have been exactly what he was doing. Kaoru decided not to remark on it, but she met his eyes in silent thanks for whatever he was thinking. They did not, after all, catch every one of those hoodlums who'd attacked Kenshin. Most of them, but not all.

"Kamiya-san?"

"Yes?"

"What did he mean?"

"Huh?"

Aoshi's eyes flicked to the slightly ajar door of Kenshin's room. "He kept saying 'I meant it'. What did he mean?"

"Oh." Kaoru smiled evenly, raised a hand to rub at a stress-induced ache in the back of her neck. "He told me once, when we were arguing about me going to school, that if it ever became clear that he wasn't right about everything we were talking about, that he'd stop being so insistent and that we'd do what I thought was best for a while. He said, 'I mean it,' then, too. But he was so sure he was right." She shrugged.

Aoshi looked thoughtfully at her for a moment before asking, "What do you think is best?"

She shrugged. "I'll have to think about it, but one thing I'm definitely going to do is move back home. He'll probably put up a fuss about that, but…"

"He'll get over it," Aoshi said.

"Yes. He'll get over it."

* * *

The blond punk frowned as he was set down at a table across from a girl with very bright, very blazing cobalt eyes. His hands were cuffed before him, but that was all. The guard left, which surprised him further. Leave the big, bad criminal completely alone in the room with a girl?

The chief of police poked his head into the room, looked directly at the girl. "Are you certain you're all right, Kamiya-san?"

"Oh, yes, Chief, thank you," the girl said.

He ducked back out. The punk blinked at the closed door twice before he turned his attention back to his visitor.

She sat quietly for another moment before she sat back in the chair slightly. "Why were you locked up before?"

"What?"

"The chief said it was larceny and assault," she prompted, resting her chin on her fist. "But specifically, what did you do? Besides stealing that truck you tried to use to run over my boyfriend?"

"Your…what?" He began to get nervous, straining his handcuffs a little.

She stood up then, her chair making a soft scraping sound as it moved back. "The chief said you stole somebody's TV," she reminded him. "You were sixteen, but the lady was still in her house. You thought she was out, but she was still there. So you knocked her down and took her TV."

He narrowed his eyes, trying to wrestle with the ungodly feeling that he was losing all control of his situation. "What are you--"

"You _deserved _prison for that," she said, raising her voice over his. "You did something wrong, and you paid for it. You brought it on yourself."

Oh, so she was one of _those _people. He sneered, his fear receding.

"Only if that scar-faced freak hadn't gotten me caught," he said.

He realized it was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes flashed, and she seemed to grow larger as heat began to build in the room.

"You hit _my _boyfriend with a truck," she said through locked teeth. "You made him break his ankle, chased him partway down the block on it, beat him up, and shot him because he caused you to get caught for hurting and stealing from someone?"

That pretty much summed it up. He shrank back in his seat and, for the first time in his life, he began to realize what it was to push someone too far.

Chief Uramura stood with his back to the visitor's room door when the first screams began.

"_Ahhhh_! Help! Help! Guard!" the punk shrieked. There was a splintering sound, and the chief adjusted his glasses wearily, knowing he was soon going to have to get a new chair for the room.

He glanced up and down the hallway, making certain they were still cleared as he ordered, then relaxed again at his post, a faint smile on his face. He was delighted to hear that Himura-san was going to make a full recovery. And, in the meantime, his aggressor had visiting time limited to ten minutes. And he was, of course, entitled to every minute.

* * *

Author's note:

_And, completed._

_Just thought I'd mention, the part at the end. First, the police chief is the same nice man with the mustache and glasses from the canon. The very same chief who has always aided or looked the other way for Kenshin and company lots of times. For example, Megumi's opium-making. No need to go into a long discussion on that, but, my cousin and I argued for a long time about the event in the end. The chief letting Kaoru "talk" to the young man aside, I wondered if Kaoru should have allowed herself to give in to the temptation._

_My cousin won the argument by three points: First and foremost, I, the author, was writing the story for her, and as long as I couldn't deny that it didn't stray far from character and that it was indeed something that could happen, it had to go in because it's what she wanted. Second, everyone probably felt like knocking the little punk around themselves by the end, so it would be very satisfying. And third, she reminded me that I did say I liked the idea of some of the chief's appreciation and distant friendship for Kenshin showing by letting a little revenge be taken for his sake._

_Which made me yet again regret saying aloud any philosophical observations I've made about the characters within her hearing. This never leads to anything but trouble._


End file.
